To use the phrase: “God’s unconditional love,” is to utter a wonderful fact about God’s nature. He loves because He chooses to love and for no other reason. His love is not dependent upon finding something in us that merits His love. His love is without conditions — it is unconditional. It says in 1 John 4:10 that “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”

God’s love was expressed through His compassion for His people. God felt pain when His love was rejected by them and He feels that same pain when we reject Him for a sinful life; a lifestyle that we know is contrary to the word of God.

Hosea was the last prophet that God raised up trying to get Israel to repent. Hosea was told by God to take a wife that was unfaithful to him as Israel was unfaithful to God. Hosea was to manifest God’s patience and love for His people.

Hosea 1:2-3 says, “When the LORD began to speak through Hosea, the LORD said to Hosea: Go, take yourself a wife of harlotry and children of harlotry, for the land has committed great harlotry by departing from the LORD.

By telling Hosea, a righteous, godly man who was the Lord’s prophet, to take a harlot as a wife, God is depicting the nature of His love and patience toward us. Thus, God wants us to understand, through His word, that just as Hosea took a wife to himself in her repulsive condition, so God takes us to Himself in our repulsive condition.

Hosea was put in a position to see how idolatry and rejection of the LORD feels to God, it doesn’t feel good. When we put anything in front of the LORD, it hurts Him like unfaithfulness hurts the victim of an adulterous marriage.

Gomer, Hosea’s wife led a life of harlotry before her marriage to Hosea, which depicts lifestyles of some prior to acceptance of Jesus Christ. He married a prostitute, no doubt hoping she would give up her sin and be devoted only to him, but she stayed a prostitute. Lifestyles will change when we become part of the bride of Christ. If a person is truly born again, and truly seeks to be part of the bride of Christ, their whole desire will be to become an imitation of Christ. It will not be a desire to fulfill the lust of the flesh but to walk in the holiness of the Spirit as it says in Galatians 5:16, walk by the Spirit and you will not carry out the desires of the flesh.

I believe that most people accept Christ to avoid hell, but the fear of hell can wear off over a period of time and boredom sets in, church programs don’t fulfill the hunger within, only truly experiencing the love of the Father can satisfy. It is the same as in any family, if your children or spouse truly feel loved; they don’t search for fulfillment somewhere else.

I know that in my relationship with my Heavenly Father, no matter what mistake I make, it has no effect on His love for me, His love never changes. It is a simple statement, but so many don’t know that love because they have been beaten down with the wrath of God, when the scripture is very plain, that God put that wrath on His son as stated in Galatians 3:13, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law.

In loving forgiveness Hosea bought his wife back; that’s God’s forgiveness and that is what He was trying to show Israel, which he shows us through this story. That through His death Jesus paid the price, He purchased us. The picture of God in Hosea is that God desires to have a loving, faithful bride, satisfied in the loving arms of a loving Father, no longer wandering about in search of the unknown.

We are His bride, that’s you and me, but that is only if you are a born again believer in Jesus Christ.

The wording of this article looks quite familiar. http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0914271601/ref=sib_dp_pop_ex?ie=UTF8&p=S00B#reader-link Funny thing is this book was written in 200o by Bill Freeman and his name isn't even mentioned in this article.